The “ordinary” as healing
It’s no secret that healing and wellness have become a multi billion dollar industry. From superfood powders to collagen infused everything to breathwork retreats that charge a small house deposit and life coaches that promise you’ll become self-employed with a six-figure monthly income if you follow their “protocol” to heal your “money wounds.”
I’m not saying it’s all bad or ill-intentioned. I do believe most people in the health and wellness industry are in it for the right reasons. They want to help people, or they genuinely believe their product will change people’s lives and support them in their health and wellness journey. But it’s a lot of noise isn’t it?
It is so easy to get overwhelmed in the world of “healing.” So many breathwork techniques, so many different “lifestyles” to follow, so much conflicting advice on what to eat, how to exercise. And yes, I do believe people who invest in luxury breathwork retreats or the likes, do have profound healing experiences, in some cases, it can truly change the trajectory of their lives.
But the experience, the product, the class - whatever it is, is just one small element of it. Healing comes from within, fully and completely. And sometimes, yes, having someone hold that space for that healing or connecting with a plant medicine or herbal product can support us, but the “healing”? Is all you.
Something that I am continuing to learn on this journey of life is that our healing is not linear. It is not this perfect graph with a beautiful upward trajectory that reaches the top and that’s where it stays, hooray you made it, you have healed perfectly and now are at the ultimate point of joy and enlightenment, no. Healing is messy and up and down and light and dark, it is cyclic. Just like us.
It pulls us into the darkness, the shadows, the discomfort. We bear our soul and cry our tears and sometimes we are there for weeks, months, even years. And then, sometimes it’s gradual and sometimes it is just one unexpected moment, we are ready to step back into the light. Into the sunshine. Into the joy and light and power of ourselves, of life. And sometimes we exist with one foot in the darkness and one foot in the light for a while. And that’s okay too.
Just like the darkness and stillness and cold of Winter or the dark phase of the moon’s cycle, we need to be inward. We need to be in the dark, the quiet. And in the same breath, when Spring comes we need to step into the light, we need to allow ourselves to blossom and evolve, we need to allow our light to grow, like the waxing moon growing full. And both can be scary, both can be hard, both can be uncomfortable. Maybe our healing comes from sitting in the darkness, in the discomfort and sometimes the healing comes from being brave, and stepping into the light, even when we are afraid.
The most profound healing moments of my life have been the ordinary ones.
I realised this a couple of months ago when I met an old friend for coffee. We met and bonded when we were young, wild and free. In our late teens, early twenties. Not a care in the world. Dressing up, going out dancing, making questionable decisions, eating questionable food, laughing - a lot. Now we are both mums to two boys each, in the trenches of motherhood in the early years. We sat in that coffee shop and ate chocolate slice and sipped coffee/matcha and we talked. And we talked. We shared what was hard, we connected over changing marriage dynamics that are inevitable with young babes, we reminisced on old times, the laughter, the dancing. I held space for her and she held space for me. And we laughed. Laughed at ourselves, at our lives, at the hilarious parenting moments. It was beautiful, and simple and ordinary. But I walked away from that two hour coffee date with my friend feeling so much lighter, grounded and optimistic than I had when I had arrived. Than I had in weeks. That was healing. I thought of all the other “ordinary” moments I’ve shared with people who I love. And I realised, maybe for the first time, how deeply healing they were too.
The birth of my second son, was another. Birth is wild and profound and deep and extraordinary. He was born into the water at home, after eight hours of pretty intense labour, the midwives didn’t make it. It was just my husband, me and two of my dearest friends. His birth was just so, extraordinarily ordinary. I had full fetal ejection reflex, he came out in two (powerful) contractions, into his dada’s arms. He cried as he came out of the water and onto my chest where he stayed until the midwives arrived. I had peanut butter toast after I birthed the placenta and a couple of hours after, everyone had gone home, we went to bed with him like any “ordinary” night. My friends and I often reflect on that experience and the powerful “ordinary-ness” of it. How it felt like the most natural and ordinary thing in the world but how it was one of the most extraordinary experiences of all of our lives, and how we were all forever changed.
I’m learning to remember that it’s not the supplements, the diet, the meditations, the superfood powders, the newest “must have” product in the health and wellness world with a multitude of studies to prove it’s effectiveness that are going to do the healing. Yes, these things can be helpful and supportive but true healing, deep healing is an inside job. And it does, it lives in the ordinary moments.
Waking up next to someone you love.
Putting your bare feet on the Earth.
Swimming in the ocean.
A belly laugh with a friend.
A hug from someone you trust.
Nourishing food.
A good cry.
A good scream.
Deep rest.
A warm cup of tea.
A moment of gratitude.
Those “extraordinary” life-changing “healing” experiences? They’re all around you my friend. In the beautiful, extraordinarily ordinary moments of your life.
Written by Danika Smith - Founder of Moon Womb
